CHANNEL STRATEGY

INNOVATIVE COMMUNICATION AND ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES

DESIGN

UX & SEO

PSYCHOLOGY

INFLUENCER PROGRAMMES

COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

PR

EVENTS

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Communications strategy and socialising the enterprise

The right mix of what to measure to determine social media ROI will always depend on your key objectives and overall social media strategy, which in turn must always tie in with the wider business objectives. I have seen communications strategies unaligned with the overarching businesses objectives, and doing so may well work from time to time, but it can jeopardise the longevity and perceived performance of an activity/campaign. I would strongly recommend to start at the top, the business objectives, and then work your way down. Below is a framework which I have put together that can be used as a rough guide. (Blank framework available here.)

COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY THROUGH DATA SEGMENTATION

Social data segmentation to inform your communications strategy

Using social media data this model visualises where different data segmentation options could sit across different business functions. It also indicates which data sets could assist the longer-term strategic planning of a business, versus providing short-term tactical intelligence. Competitor research, for example, could sit under tactical as a business is not usually privy to another organisations longer-term business plan. Here Samsung could employ real-time marketing to react to an announcement Apple made. However, competitor data could equally sit under strategic if the data is used to map out longer-term increases of share of voice. In fact competitor data could also come under customer service, product development, marketing and sales. The model illustrates a natural place for certain data to sit, but as with all models it is merely a possible reflection of reality. An additional dimension is added along the x-axis to show which functions and corresponding data sets tend to be more reactive as opposed to proactive.

CONSUMER JOURNEY

There is no doubt that the consumer journey is still evolving as people adapt to ever changing technologies, and the corresponding information sources that are enabled. “The average number of information sources used by shoppers doubled from 2010 to 2011”, Professor David Bell. The new approach to a decision journey above attempts to highlight the complex and non-linear paths that people can take when discovering and purchasing products or services. Important to note when interpreting it is that a person can start at any touchpoint, except for ‘your business’, and move on to any subsequent touchpoint. A friend may tell you about a product (word of mouth), moving you from awareness to consideration to evaluation in the space of a conversation. However, you may then determine that you do not need the product at that particular time, and go back into the awareness orbit until you are ready to reconsider.